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Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

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DOI: 10.9734/bpi/rdst/v8/2545A

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 Chapter 5
Print ISBN: 978-93-5547-501-5, eBook ISBN: 978-93-5547-508-4

Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

Munther Issa Kandah a,b*
DOI:10.9734/bpi/rdst/v8/2545A

ABSTRACT

In this project, the principles of electrochemistry were employed to decompose water into oxygen and
hydrogen gas at low current. Different electrolyzer designs were investigated to produce sufficient
amount of gases with minimum heat loss and low current withdrawal. A flowrate of HHO gas about
634 ml/min was achieved at low current about 20 A using 16 rectangular plates (3 cathodes, 3 anodes
and 10 neutrals). The low current was achieved by choosing the suitable electrolyzer design and
electrolyte concentration. The efficiency of water electrolysis was calculated as the ratio between the
HHO flow rate measured experimentally to that measured theoretically from Farady's law. The most
effective electrolyzer is discovered to have 22 plates (4 anodes, 4 cathodes and 14 neutrals). The
HHO flowrate was 740 ml/min at 17 A and 20 g KOH with parallel connection. The efficiency was
62.92%.

Keywords: Electrolysis design; hydrogen production; Farady's law;

1. INTRODUCTION

Hydrogen at present is made by reacting steam with natural gas, naptha, etc. In the longer term, it
could be made by two methods which would also involve fossil fuels. The first of these involves the
direct reaction of steam with coal [1]. Such a method has to be carried out in conjunction with the gas
shift reaction which involves reaction of the CO produced with steam to form CO2. Hydrogen
produced by this method would be cheap ($ 6--7 per MBTU, or GJ) [2]. A slightly cheaper method [3]
would involve the reaction of iron with steam, giving hydrogen and Fe3O4; the latter is then reacted
with carbon giving CO2 and regenerating the iron [4]. These cheap methods have a major fault: they
produce air pollutants. The first of these is SO2, with acid rain [5]. Sufficient removal of sulfur from
coal before it is burnt or from stacks, turns out to be impractical because of the expense, together with
difficulties in disposing of sulfur. In terms of longer consideration, the continued addition to the
environment of CO2 would cause a rise in the sea level of several meters by mid-century [6].

Water is one important source of hydrogen and there are different known possible methods for
producing hydrogen from water such as electrolysis [7], plasmolysis [8], magnetolysis [9, 10], direct
decomposition of water thermally [11,12], catalytic decomposition of water thermally [13], cyclic
decomposition of water thermally [14], thermochemical process [15], photosensitized decomposition
using dyes [16], plasma-induced photolysis [17], photoelectrolysis [18], photovoltatic electrolysis [19],
bio-catalytic decomposition of water [20] and radiolysis [21]. Electrolysis has been known for the
production of hydrogen since the early nineteenth century. It gives hydrogen at 99.99% purity
compared with the 98% hydrogen obtained from fossil sources. The process by which hydrogen (and
oxygen) is generated from water is called electrolysis. The word "lysis" means to dissolve or break
apart, so the word "electrolysis" literally means to break something apart (in this case water) using
electricity. Electrolysis is very simple - all one has to do is to arrange for electricity (DC current) to
pass between two electrodes placed in the water. It is as simple as that. The chemical equation for
electrolysis is shown in equation 1:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
a
Chemical Engineering Department, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O.Box 3030, IRBID- 22110, Jordan.
b
Chemical Engineering Department, University of Doha for Science and Technology, Doha, Qatar.
*Corresponding author: E-mail: mkandah@just.edu.jo, munther.kandah@udst.edu.qa.
 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

(1)

The required voltage for splitting a molecule of water is approximately 1.23 V in laboratory conditions
which is also called the equilibrium stage. This matter is caused by over potential level of the
electrochemical reaction [10].

One might have expected that H2O would break up into an H and an OH (the same atoms but with
neutral charges) instead, but this doesn't happen because the oxygen atom more strongly attracts the
electron from the H - it steals it (we say the oxygen atom is more "electronegative" than hydrogen).
This theft allows the resulting hydroxide ion to have a completely filled outer shell, making it more
+ -
stable. But the H , which is just a naked proton, is now free to pick up an electron (symbolized e ) from
the cathode, which is trying hard to donate electrons, and become a regular, neutral hydrogen atom:
. This hydrogen atom meets another hydrogen atom and forms a hydrogen gas
molecule: , and this molecule bubbles to the surface, and hydrogen gas will be
-
produced. Meanwhile, the positive anode has caused the negatively charged hydroxide ion (OH ) to
travel across the container to the anode. When it gets to the anode, the anode removes the extra
electron that the hydroxide stole from the hydrogen atom earlier, and the hydroxide ion then
recombines with three other hydroxide molecules to form 1 molecule of oxygen and 2 molecules of
water: . The oxygen molecule is very stable, and bubbles to the
surface. In this way, a closed circuit is created, involving negatively charged particles - electrons in the
wire, hydroxide ions in the water. Burton et al. [22] presented an overview of the current status of
solar powered water electrolysis along with some of the innovative applications used to enhance the
overall efficiency of different systems. In their study, they provide a new insight into why different
applications such as magnetic fields; light energy fields; ultrasonic fields; and pulsating electric fields
may be enhancing the efficiency of electrolysis. Chisholm et al. [23] investigated the different
hydrogen production techniques by electrolysis such as alkaline, proton exchange membrane, and
solid oxide. They studied different methods of storing the hydrogen produced by electrolysis along
with the integration of production and storage into large-scale demonstration projects.

The objectives of this project are to design, build and operate an electrochemical cell that is able to
produce sufficient amount of hydrogen and oxygen at low current. In addition to that designing,
manufacturing and testing an electronic circuit that is capable of lowering the current as much as
possible without affecting the gas production amount.

2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND PROCEDURE

Different electrolyzers designs were investigated such as those having plates or cylindrical electrodes
connected in series or parallel with different numbers of anodes and cathodes as shown in Table 1.
Also different electrolyte concentrations were investigated using KOH, tap water or sodium carbonate
as a catalyst. The cathodes and anodes were manufactured from stainless steel 316L while the
electrolyzer itself was manufactured from Plexiglas. The plate electrodes dimensions were (17 cm
length, 15 cm width and 1 mm thickness) while the tubes dimensions were (15 cm height, 1 cm inner
diameter and 1 mm thickness). The spacing between the anodes and cathodes in both designs was
2-3 mm.

Fig. 1 shows a complete setup consisting of a Plexiglas container containing the electrolyte and the
electrodes that are connected to the 12 V battery in order to provide the cell with the required current
for electrolysis. The electrical current was measured by an Ammeter connected in series with the
circuit. The bubbler was connected right after the electrolyzer and used as a safely piece. When the
HHO gas comes out of the electrolyzer, it goes through the bubbler which is filled with a liquid (usually
water or vinegar) and out of the other end to be used from there. Therefore, the bubbler cools the
warm gas and cleans it from any electrolyte particles going out with gas.

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 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

Fig. 1. The electrolysis setup showing the Plexiglas container, the electrodes, the electrolyte
and the bubbler

Table 1. The electrolysis data for different electrodes designs and electrolyte
concentrations

Connection Electrolyte Current (A) Flow rate (ml/min)

5C5A0N 1 g KOH/3L 4 107
5C5A0N 2 g KOH/3L 13 209
5C5A0N 3 g KOH/3L 25 316
5C5A0N 4 g KOH/3L 33 430
5C5A0N 5 g KOH/3L 38 490
5C5A0N 10 g KOH/3L 60 703
5C5A9N 1 g KOH/3L 0 0
5C5A9N 2 g KOH/3L 5 106
5C5A9N 3 g KOH/3L 10 216
5C5A9N 4 g KOH/3L 15 333
5C5A9N 5 g KOH/3L 20 403
5C5A9N 10 g KOH/3L 30 507
5C5A9N 15 g KOH/3L 45 832
3C3A10N 1 g KOH/3L 0 0
3C3A10N 2 g KOH/3L 3 59
3C3A10N 3 g KOH/3L 5 77
3C3A10N 4 g KOH/3L 6 162
3C3A10N 5 g KOH/3L 7 238
3C3A10N 10 g KOH/3L 13 352

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 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

Connection Electrolyte Current (A) Flow rate (ml/min)

3C3A10N 15 g KOH/3L 20 634
1 cylinder Tap water 2.8 37
2 cyl in series Tap water 8 90
1 cylinder 1 g KOH/1.5 L 7 86
2 cyl in series 1 g KOH/1.5 L 3.5 90
3 cyl in series 1 g KOH/1.5 L 1.6 50
2 cyl in parallel 1 g KOH/1.5 L 10 120
3 cyl in parallel 1 g KOH/1.5 L 13 190
1 cylinder 3.5 g KOH/1.5L 9 100
10C10A0N Tap water 11 200
10C10A0N 3.125 g Sodium 20 174
Carbonate/3L
10C10A0N 4.166 g SC/3L 30 375
10C10A0N 6.25 g SC/3L 30 300
10C10A0N 12.5 g SC /3L 60+ 600
10C10A0N 25 g SC/3L 60+ 1000
10C10A0N 50 g SC/3L 60+ 1125
10C10A0N 100 g SC/3L 60+ 1800
10C10A0N 1.5 g KOH/3L 60+ 400

The HHO flow rate was measured by calculating the water displacement per time according to the
setup shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. The setup for measuring the HHO flow rate

Figs. 3a,b,c show three different electrolyzers designs with rectangular plates of 5 anodes, 5 cathodes
without any neutrals (5C5A0N), 5 anodes, 5 cathodes and 9 neutrals (5C5A9N) and 3 cathodes, 3
anodes and 10 neutrals (3C3A10N), respectively. Fig. 4 shows another electrolyzer design with six
cylindrical cathodes and six cylindrical anodes connected together in parallel.

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 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

a b c

Fig. 3. Plate electrodes connected in parallel, a) 5C5A0N; b) 5C5A9N; and c) 3C3A10N

Fig. 4. Cylindrical electrodes connected in parallel

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Before discussing the results, it is important to mention that any new electrodes need pretreatment
before the first run because smooth surfaces will not produce significant quantity of HHO. Therefore,
the electrodes left unused in the KOH solution for 24 hours in order to receive a white coating, then
when the power was first applied, very little electrolysis took place as the active surfaces get covered
with bubbles which stick to them and a scum was formed on the water surface. After cleaning the
scum and repeating the process few times, the scum no longer forms and the active electrodes
surfaces had the white coating.

From Figs. 5, 6 and 7, one can notice that increasing the KOH catalyst concentration increases the
current and the gas flow rate in all designs. In Fig. 5, the design (5C5A0N) where five rectangular
plates were used as cathode, five rectangular plates as anode and zero as neutrals, the gas flow
rates were 107, 209, 316, 430, 490 and 703 ml/min at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 g KOH/3L and 4, 13, 25, 33,
38 and 60 A, respectively. This behavior is expected due to the decrease in the resistance, the
increase in the conductivity and power. Fig. 6 shows the same trend for the design 5C5A9N where the
gas flow rates were 0, 106, 216, 333, 403, 507 and 832 ml/min at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 15 g KOH/3L
and 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 45 A, respectively. On the other hand, the last plate design in this project
was 3C3A10N as shown in Fig. 7. This design showed the best results in terms of gas flow rate
versus current where the gas flow rates were 0, 59, 77, 162, 238, 352 and 634 ml/min at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
10 and 15 g KOH/3L and 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 13 and 20 A, respectively. From the comparison between the
three designs, it is clear that the best design parameters were the connection of 3 cathodes, 3 anodes
and 10 neutrals as shown in Fig. 7 with KOH concentration of 15 g/3L because this system produced
634 ml/min of HHO gas at reasonable low current of 20 A.

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 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

It is obvious from the Figs. 5, 6, and 7 in addition to the results presented in Table 1 that the HHO flow
rate and the associated current depend strongly on the design of the electrodes and the electrolyte
concentrations. Increasing the electrolyte concentration, the number of anodes and cathodes increase
the HHO flow rate and the electric current. Therefore, we were able to solve this problem by
decreasing the number of anodes and cathodes and increasing the number of neutral electrodes and
the concentration of electrolyte. In this case we were able to achieve high HHO flow rate at low
current. The increase in the number of neutral electrodes is limited and depends on the number of
anodes and cathodes. From this design and operating parameters we produced a small flame at low
current (20 A). The next step will be to scale up this design to make home heater.

800 70

700 60
5C5A0N
Volumetric Flow Rate (ml/min)

600 Q…
50

Current (A)
500
40
400
30
300
20
200

100 10

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Concentration (g KOH/3L water)

Fig. 5. Effect of concentration of KOH on the volumetric gas flow rate and electric current for
the 5C5A0N design

900 50

800 45
5C5A9
700 Q… 40
Volumetric Flow Rate (ml/min)

I (A)
35
600
Current (A)

30
500
25
400
20
300
15
200 10
100 5
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Concentration (g KOH/3L water)

Fig. 6. Effect of concentration of KOH on the volumetric gas flow rate and electric current for
the 5C5A9N design

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 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

700 25

600 3C3A10N
Volumetric Flow Rate (ml/min) Q (ml/min) 20
I (A)
500

Current (A)
15
400

300
10

200
5
100

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Concentration (g KOH/3L water)

Fig. 7. Effect of concentration of KOH on the volumetric gas flow rate and electric current for
the 3C3A10N design

Table 2 shows the results for new design using cylinders instead of plates. It is clear that the
maximum gas flow rate was 190 ml/min for 3 cylinders connected in parallel where the current was 13
A. Increasing the number of cylinders increased the gas flow rate and the current simultaneously.
Comparing with the plate design, higher gas flow rate (352 ml/min) was achieved in the 3C3A10N at
low current (13 A). The connection of cylindrical electrodes in series obtained lower gas flow rates and
lower current.

Table 2. The electrolysis data for cylindrical design

Connection Electrolyte Current (A) Flow rate (ml/min)

1 cylinder Tap water 2.8 37
2 cyl in series Tap water 8 90
1 cylinder 0.5 g KOH/3 L 7 86
2 cyl in series 0.5 g KOH/3L 3.5 90
3 cyl in series 0.5 g KOH/3L 1.6 50
2 cyl in parallel 0.5 g KOH/3L 10 120
3 cyl in parallel 0.5 g KOH/3L 13 190
1 cylinder 2.3 g KOH/3L 9 100

In this project a study to enhance the efficiency of HHO gas production from water by electrolysis was
also conducted taking into account the effect of, electrolyte type and concentration, electrodes
spacing, electrodes surface morphology (smooth or rough), electrodes connection configuration and
electrodes effective area (number of electrodes) on the amount of HHO gas flow rate production and
electrolyzer efficiency.

Using Farady’s first law of electrolysis (eqn. 2), the theoretical amount of HHO flow rate in liter per
hour for one

*cell was calculated.

(2)

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 Research Developments in Science and Technology Vol. 8
Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

Where V is the volume of gas in Liters (L) per one cell, R is the ideal gas constant (0.082
L.atm/mol.K), I is the electrical current in Amber (A), T is the temperature of the solution in Kelvin (K),
t is the electrolysis time in seconds (s), P is the ambient pressure in atmosphere (atm), F is Faraday’s
constant (96500 C/mol) and z is the number of excess electrons (2 for H2 and 4 for O2).The
electrolyzer efficiency is usually calculated based on the ratio of the amount of the gas flow rate
measured experimentally and that calculated theoretically from Faraday’s law. The measured flow
rate was composed of both hydrogen and oxygen together. This means the volume calculated from
Faraday’s law is equal to the volume of both gases in which the amount of hydrogen produced is
twice that of oxygen because each mole of H2O is dissociated to produce 2 moles of H2 and 1 mole of
O2.

After deciding the best electrodes shapes (plates), electrodes polishing number (# 180), electrodes
connection method (parallel), and a reasonable electrolyte concentration that give low current (10 to
20 A), one has to find the best parameters that gives the highest HHO gas production flow rate at the
lowest possible current, hence the highest efficiency. As shown in Table 3, the best electrode design
will be 4C4A14N, with 20 g KOH/3L which produced 740 ml/min of HHO at low current (17 A) and
high efficiency about 62.92%.

Table 3. The optimum electrolyzer design parameter

Connection Electrolyte Polishing Electrodes Current Flow rate Efficiency

# spacing (mm) (A) (ml/min) %
4C4A14N 20 g KOH/3L 180 2-3 17 470 62.92

4. CONCLUSIONS

The results from this project showed that the plate electrodes are more suitable than the cylindrical
ones and the connection in parallel is better than that in series. Using neutral electrodes between the
anodes and cathodes in the correct quantities that keeps HHO production high, decreases the
electrical current needed without affecting the HHO production significantly. A small flame was
produced at 20 A using the suggested design and electrolyte concentration.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS

In the next phase of this project I will apply the results to make a home heater. This needs a special
setup and new funding.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was financially supported by and acknowledged to project number 144/2008, Jordan
University of Science & Technology, Irbid, Jordan.

COMPETING INTERESTS

Author has declared that no competing interests exist.

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5. US News and World Report, November. 1982;43.29.

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Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

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Electrolysis Design for Hydrogen Production

Biography of author(s)

Munther Issa Kandah

Chemical Engineering Department, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O.Box 3030, IRBID- 22110, Jordan.
Chemical Engineering Department, University of Doha for Science and Technology, Doha, Qatar.

He is a professor at the Chemical Engineering Department at Jordan University of Science and Technology. Recently in a
Sabbatical leave at Doha University for Science & Technology. He worked in research and teaching for 25 years and has 8
years of administration experience. He chaired the chemical engineering department at Jordan University of Science &
Technology for 4 years and was a director for the linking with industry department at JUST for another 4 years. He has a BS in
chemical engineering from Yarmouk University-Jordan and MSc and PhD in chemical engineering from McGill University-
Canada. He has more than 50 publications in an international journals and conferences and one USA patent. His research
started with the area of Thermal Plasma Technology and Vacuum Arc Deposition, then he worked on the production of Carbon
Nanotubes. Nowadays, his research concentrating on the field of energy and environment, utilization of solid wastes and fuel
cells areas.
_________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright (2022): Author(s). The licensee is the publisher (Book Publisher International).

DISCLAIMER
This chapter is an extended version of the article published by the same author(s) in the following journal.
Journal of Energy Technologies and Policy, 4(11): 01-09, 2014.

88

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